This pandemic might be the best thing that has happened to the auction industry since the Internet. The mandatory quarantine has the potential to change the public perception of auctioneers in our culture.
Like with this Coronavirus reality in which we’re living, the person you’ll save with your precautions is probably someone else. For all of my auctioneer friends who’ve been posting about getting the economy going again to save businesses, I’d look at your potential to help the auction industry do just that in the long term.
While this change is inconvenient for almost all of us, it creates another Darwinian opportunity for professional marketers to separate themselves from those unwilling to adapt. Commissions are at stake, if not business models. Whether you outsource your social media or handle it in-house, you’ll be best served by viewing the asset through your buyers’ eyes instead of your own—and then using as few words and characters as possible to sell them.
Never in human history has targeting thousands of wealthy people been so easy or inexpensive. Thankfully, that means we can get better results for our sellers in shorter time frames and on smaller budgets.
From talking to my clients, I know that auctioneers sometimes face uncomfortable post-sale conversations with their sellers because they aren’t having tough pre-sale conversations with their sellers.
While photo-based ads typically outperform video and slideshow ads for my clients, I have seen videos deliver significant website traffic for some auctions. If you do reminder ads to pixel traffic, a slideshow or video can add value by mixing some variety into your second interaction with potential buyers. If you’re using video on your website, anyway, it’s worth experimenting with video ads and even A/B testing them with photo-based ads. Your videos will perform much better both in those tests and in general, if they follow the following guidelines.
Without that message, I am uncomfortable wasting auctioneer’s money on advertising to sellers. Every winter, a line of auctioneers call or email me about getting more sellers. This winter was no different. The consultation unfortunately doesn’t continue long after I ask them the following questions:
